Dolls
by EverVengeful
Summary: He broke the doll, many years ago. Now he breaks her. SnapeHermione, AU.


When I was quite young, not yet at Hogwarts, my mother took me to a secret room deep within our house. I remember being terrified, thinking that she was going to kill me, or make me kill someone else. After all, growing up in a den of Dark wizards, such concerns were hardly mere paranoia.

However, I needn't have feared. Instead of the cell I was expecting, my mother took me to a dismally unlit chamber, filled with glass cases. She whispered a word and with a flick of her wrist, the entire hall was illuminated, revealing the contents of the boxes—hundreds and hundreds of dolls.

The sight of them incited my mother to a flurry of activity. Running to the far side of the chamber, she came back bearing an impossibly large key ring. Selecting a key, she used it to open the case closest to us. "Here, Severus." Even her voice was strange; excited, but it a taut way that suggested it would break under too much pressure. I had never heard it before and it terrified me.

I took the doll she offered me. It was of porcelain and I would later discover that it was of a sleepy Muggle faery-princess. But at the time, all I knew was the she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.

Her hair was a buttery yellow, with all the gleam of a freshly minted Galleon. I reached up to stroke the locks, wondering if they were as silky as they looked, when my mother snapped at me. "Don't touch her." My hands jerked, and before I knew what was happening, the doll was in shards on the stone floor and my mother was weeping over it. I ran out of the room as fast as my chubby seven-year-old legs would take me.

For years afterward my dreams were haunted by images of my mother. She looked up at me with beseeching eyes, begging me to right the hideous wrong I had committed. And, always, she held up the doll. "Didn't you want her, Severus?" she would ask coyly, holding the figurine as she would a baby. "She is rather lovely, isn't she?" A salacious smile. Then a laugh, as she throws the doll to the ground. "But look what you've done with her!" Then I wake up, only to find that I have torn the sheets in my haste to collect the nonexistent porcelain splinters.

And people wonder why I sought the solace of Death Eaters? Say what you will of Voldemort, but he was the first to tell me that I could control my dreams, that I need be a slave to them. Nonetheless, I did not enjoy my service with him; you'll forgive me if I do not dwell on it.

When Dumbledore welcomed me back—more fool him—I gained a few years of peace. Dreams did not torment me and it seemed that life, or at least sleep, would return to normal.

Then the buck toothed Mudblood came. That event in and of itself would not have affected me too greatly; after all, students come and go every year. But she was just so damned _eager_. Even in my class, where most students cower and hope to avoid my notice, she _begged_ for my attention. So I admit I was intrigued. But it wasn't until the dreams returned that I realized I was quite a bit more than intrigued. I was obsessed.

No longer did my mother hold the doll. Instead, she held Hermione, who kicked and screamed, while staying tantalizingly out of my reach.

The torment was unimaginable. You must understand, had you been in my place, you would have done the same. You would not have had a choice. If you had had to watch her everyday, learning her every intimate secret, you would have had no more control over what happened than I did.

I invited the child to my office one night under the pretense of grades. She was nervous, of course. I had done nothing but ridicule her for the past six years. I put her under _Petrificus_ as soon as I could. I levitated her to my chambers where I set her down as carefully as I was able in the chair closest to the fire. Then I wasted a good half hour trying to figure out how best to accomplish my goal. My method couldn't leave any visible markings; that would defeat the purpose of this whole exercise. Finally, I settled upon a technique.

The potion was fairly simple, taking only a few hours to brew. She was perfectly willing to drink it and within a few minutes she was dead.

I had only a few preparations left. First, I transfigured her hair into the same gold as that of the doll. I surveyed my handiwork. Something was missing yet….finally I hit upon it. I had destroyed the doll.

With a flick of my wrist, a strip of her skin peeled away and fell to the floor, leaving blood and organs to gush from her body. Another flick, less skin, more blood and organs. And so on, until all that was left intact was her skull. I flung it against the wall where it shattered most satisfactorily.

Already the mourning has started; the brightest witch of her age, and on and on. No one knows that she was only a doll.

Every time you read and don't review, an blind three-legged puppy named Fido dies. Save Fido.


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